Putting the Care in Hearing Care
Personalized service not only generates referrals but also leads to long-term patient/specialist relationships.
For Diane and Allen Brubaker, life in Florida is just one chapter of a long journey they have taken together.
“We bought an RV when we retired,” explains Allen, “so we’ve traveled around quite a bit. We have been in Florida off and on since 1978.”
Eventually, Allen began to experience hearing loss, he recalls.
“Anytime my wife would say something, I’d say, What ? Her parents actually picked up on it, and so that clued me in to the fact that my hearing wasn’t doing too well.”
In fact, adds Diane, “That’s what finally convinced him he needed hearing aids.”
During the 1980s and 1990s, Allen ordered hearing aids through the mail. When he and Diane moved to Brevard County, he looked around for another option.
“We went to Dan’s Fan City in Melbourne, and the man who ran that had hearing aids. I said, Where did you get your hearing aids? And he recommended Dan Taylor. He said Dan was a great guy, he did good work, and he liked him a lot.”
The ReSound Be
Dan Taylor, ACA, BC-HIS, COHC, of A-Advanced Hearing Care has been in the heart of Melbourne for the last 20 years.
As someone who has a hearing loss himself, Dan understands the importance of spending considerable time and effort finding the best solutions for every patient who comes into his office. He provides comprehensive and state-of-the-art hearing testing and hearing instrument technology, but the focus is always on patient care first, emphasizes Dan.
“I believe it’s important to never lose sight of the fact that these are patients with hearing problems,” he says. “There is a prosthesis involved, but that’s secondary to the care I deliver. I’m not so much concerned as to how the patient’s hearing loss began; I’m interested in providing solutions.
“I’ve been in the same neighborhood for twenty years,” he reminds, “and I wouldn’t have been able to thrive here without taking care of my patient base.”
Once Diane saw how Dan treated Allen, she didn’t have to think twice about where to go when she began to experience her own hearing loss. “He took care of my husband in great fashion,” she assures.
She adds that her own history made her reluctant to have anything inside her ears, but that Dan was more than able to accommodate her.
“As a child, I had earaches. There was no penicillin, so what they did was to lance my eardrum, which was painful…not something a child wants to go through! So I wanted nothing to do with anything in my ear,” she explains.
“While Allen has been a patient for several years,” notes Dan, “I recently fit Diane with ReSound’s unique Be product, which was designed specifically to provide an entry-level, modular-style, open fitting for first-time hearing aid wearers. ReSound’s unique product line provides me with the different models needed to meet their different goals.”
“It’s not something you notice when it’s in your ear,” reports Diane, “because it’s so light and out of the way. It is a fantastic hearing aid.”
Dan adds that he always makes sure to deliver the best product at the best price for his patients.
“I belong to a buyer’s group called Ear Q, which not only provides me the opportunity to offer a nationwide service network of Ear Q dispensers, but also to purchase my products at volume discounts from my vendors,” he explains.
“Personalized service means it’s the way we take care of people after they have been fit that counts.”
The poodle bites
Of course, for the Brubakers, no hearing aid discussion would be complete without their confiding a couple of cautionary tales of mishaps over the years.
“We had a poodle,” recalls Allen, “and I would sit in my recliner and take the hearing aid out and set it next to me and forget it was there. Well, in one instance, the poodle ate it.”
In fact, Allen admits that he almost did the same thing himself on another occasion.
“One time, I was sitting there eating cashews. And hearing aids look like cashews, so I bit into it. I took that one back to Dan, and he was able to fix it.”
Diane shares her own tale of a hearing aid mishap.
“I misplaced it while we were out, and it wasn’t until later that I found it next to the car in the garage,” she explains. “We had run over it with the car!”
Still, in all this time, the Brubakers are happy to have found someone like Dan to help them regain, and maintain, their hearing.
“When you buy a hearing aid,” explains Allen, “you don’t just walk out of the store and never come back. Over time, problems arise, and sometimes the hearing orifice will get clogged up and have to be cleaned out. But any time we have a problem that we can’t resolve by ourselves, we call Dan. He always says, Come on in, we’ll take care of it . And he does!”
Service with a smile
In fact, having had such a long-term relationship with Dan, Diane and Allen both have nothing but good to say about their hearing care provider.
“Dan is a very friendly guy, very caring, and he does an excellent job,” assures Diane.
“He takes good care of us,” adds Allen. “Sometimes, there’s a very modest charge, depending on what he has to do, but he’s very reasonable.
“He’s a great guy, and we recommend him to anybody.”
FHCN – Michael J. Sahno